A few years after the Live Local Act was passed, the chief executive officer for the Florida Housing Coalition believes we still have yet to know what the long-term effects will be because "development takes time."
Florida is the most rent-cost-burdened state in the country. Around 60% of this state's 2.9 million renters spend more than 30% of their monthly budget on rent and 30% of those spend more than half of their budget on housing.
Florida's Live Local Act, passed in 2023, was promoted as a tool to increase the amount of affordable housing in the state for households at or below 120% of an area's median income (AMI). The law primarily focuses on increasing the number of rental units that are available in a particular community.
The law has prompted controversy over concerns about potential redevelopment of agricultural land. In addition, WUSF reported in 2024 that a Florida Policy Institute analyst revealed the law put an unfair burden on those single-handedly supporting children, parents or people with disabilities.
ALSO READ: Sarasota County sued over efforts to block Live Local projects
The FPI said those who qualify for housing created by the act typically earn between 80% and 120% AMI. But the average salary for workers like firefighters, law enforcement officers and educators who are the sole earners in their family falls below the threshold. So as the household grows, the available housing will become less affordable.
The 2024 report by the Florida Policy Institute ranked housing affordability as:
- Affordable: household spends <= 30% of their income on housing costs.
- Cost-burdened household: spends > 30% of their income on housing costs.
- Severely cost-burdened household: spends > 50% of their income on housing costs.
The Florida Housing Coalition works to advance affordable housing solutions across the state, according to its website. The organization's CEO, Ashon Nesbitt, explained that you really start to see a "higher-cost burden" for those below 80% AMI.
ALSO READ: Florida's Live Local Act may not be helping some people find affordable housing
"Those that are kind of in that 80 to 120% [AMI], the majority of those households aren't yet cost-burdened in most markets," Nesbitt said.
On "The Florida Roundup," Nesbitt discussed how the Act affects different professions, how much affordable housing has been built so far and more.
The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity.
How does this Act affect households with different professions?
If you were a teacher and you were a single person, most likely, you are at 80% or below. If you're a teacher in a two-person household, you may not meet that definition. If you really want to break it down that way, looking at household make-up does tend to impact whether or not you meet the definition or the household that this is targeting.
What does this Act allow developers to do?
It does give developers the opportunity to build residential, commercial and industrial zones. In some cases, they might not have been allowed to do that under the traditional zoning district.
It does allow for a higher level of density, and this is to really open up more development sites for housing that's affordable to the workforce and those that are in that lower-income band.
But there are still some limitations as to what can actually be built there.
What are the limitations for developers?
There are some outright limitations, based upon the location, near airports and things like that. There's some limitations in terms of height and going a certain number of stories high. There's still kind of all the other things that they have to meet.
So everything that's within a local government's zoning regulation, with some additional flexibility, but in terms of setbacks: Landscaping, all those types of things.
They still have to meet those things, which I think is important because it encapsulates the values for that particular community, and things that they want to see.
I think what gives is the flexibility in terms of the use, where they didn't have that use before.
How much affordable housing has actually been built through Live Local?
We've been tracking, and again, our tracking is not perfect, but we've been tracking about 70,000 proposed units. Of those, about 10,000 are under construction.
This law has definitely benefited both bringing new developers to the table as well as our traditional affordable housing developers that now have more sites to choose from.
So, some of the first units that are coming out of the ground are actually those traditional affordable units, from tax credit developers that are really targeting those at and/or below 80%.
ALSO READ: Florida's Live Local Act promises affordable rent. For many in Sarasota, it's still out of reach
How much impact is this Act making?
The first impact is that the production has definitely increased overall in terms of rental housing production.
I think we are yet to see what the long-term impacts will be in terms of how this has impacted overall rates in a particular community going down just because there's more supply.
But I will say the initial impact is that there are more sites that are available and starting to come out of the ground.
Development takes time and when the need is right now, but I think that we can't overlook that there's been more production, and I think we will start to see some impacts on overall markets in terms of rental rates.
Looking forward to the legislative session in Tallahassee, is there anything coming through that could further alleviate some of these affordable housing concerns?
I think what is often overlooked is that the Live Local Act did create some new funding streams that we hope will come back. A big part of it was the innovative SAIL, which provided some additional funding to create more of those 80% and below units. That was super important, and we saw some developments benefiting from that.
We hope that's something that comes back with this 2027 legislative session, and those are the types of things I think we should look forward to.
This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Carlton Gillespie for "The Florida Roundup."
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